


Thinking Outside the Box

by Dea (dea_liberty)



Category: Cal Leandros - Thurman
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-21
Updated: 2009-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-04 19:44:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/33431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dea_liberty/pseuds/Dea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Robin takes Cal shopping for something "different" to give his brother for Christmas. Cal is not impressed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thinking Outside the Box

**Author's Note:**

  * For [amaresu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/amaresu/gifts).



"Yes, Niko, I'll watch Cal's back. No, Niko, I won't let anything stab him or shoot him or eat him, unless it's the certain kind of ea — OW. _Ow_. Okay, okay, I won't let him die, I swear."

Cal glanced up as Robin came into the room, rubbing his arm in the general area where Cal knew he had a very specific nerve, one he also referred to as "Niko's favorite punishment nerve." Cal bit back a grin. He shouldn't take so much pleasure in someone else suffering by Niko's hand, but he really didn't care.

"Let's go," Robin said to Cal, throwing a dirty look at Niko as he breezed back through the door. "Before he decides to attack me again."

"It was barely a love tap," Niko retorted. Cal could see from his face that he immediately regretted that turn of phrase, especially as Robin's expression changed and he opened his mouth. "Don't even think about making that comment," Niko warned before any sound could leave Robin's mouth. "I won't _tap_ next time."

Robin went back to scowling, this time directing it at Cal. "C'mon, then." It really was unfair how Cal had to suffer for the things Niko did. Niko wasn't the one who was going to have to deal with a bitchy, pissy Robin Goodfellow for the next several hours.

Unsurprisingly, Robin kept on talking as they left the apartment and headed outside. There weren't many things that could stop Robin talking, and irritation definitely made it worse. "Jeez, he's worst than most mothers. What does he think I'm going to do, anyway? Mug you and leave you in a ditch to die? Like you even have anything worth taking." Robin's nose turned up in distaste. After all this time, it no longer came as a surprise to Cal that Robin didn't approve of the style of pretty much anything he owned.

Cal shook his head. "No, he's probably worried you're going to host some mad orgy and get me supernatural gonorrhea."

Robin looked _scandalized_. "As if I would associate myself with those of —" Cal was definitely going to remember that huff of indignation, princess-like as it was — anything to use against Robin in the future was a good thing to remember. Then, in classic Goodfellow style, his expression shifted into something close to a leer. "Now, an _orgy_, on the other hand…."

"Stop right there," Cal interjected. "No orgies. We agreed, remember?"

"You are no fun." He reached over and tried to ruffle Cal's hair, a movement that Cal ducked with an irritated look. "And you always ruin _my_ fun. There's really nothing wrong with orgies, you know. They're perfectly healthy for —"

"Can we stop talking about orgies?" Like any healthy teenager, thinking about sex would ensure Cal wouldn't be able to _stop_ thinking about it for the rest of the evening. "Focus, Loman."

"How _did_ you manage to convince Niko to let you come out with me anyway?" Robin asked curiously. "I mean, he didn't even ask me for specific details when I came to pick you up. Just attacked me."

"I talked to him about sex."

Robin snorted, then choked out a laugh, shaking his head. "I take it back," he said once he could actually draw in enough air to talk. "You're a _little_ fun."

Cal smirked at him. "Remind me again why we're doing this?"

"Instead of having an orgy?"

"Stop talking about orgies." Seriously, everything was about to get incredibly uncomfortable. If there was one thing Cal really had to give Robin, it was that he had impeccable tastes when it came to his… companions, and Cal really needed to stop thinking along those lines before his problem because less mental and much more _physical_.

Robin let out a long-suffering sigh. "We're on a mission to get Niko a present."

"Why can't we just get him a sword?" And have that orgy. _Damn it_. Horrible thoughts, that's what Cal needed, thoughts about dead puppies and old grandmas and something absolutely unrelated to Goodfellow and his orgies because, really, he'd told Robin they had to focus. Damn puck.

"Because he can get himself his own shiny sharp object to add to his collection. You're actually going to use your brain for a change and think up something nice for him."

Cal sighed. "You know this isn't going to help you get in his pants, right? I mean, really, Nik's not interested."

Robin smirked. When Cal glanced up at the shop sign of the place Robin first pulled to a stop in front of, Cal realized he really should have guessed. "This? Was really not what I had in mind when I said something different."

"What?" Robin had the nerve to try to look innocent. "BDSM gear isn't 'different' to you?"

Cal snorted. "And you think Promise doesn't know or hasn't tried any of this stuff with him?" he asked, walking inside the store anyway. Wow, yeah, he did _not_ want to imagine Promise and his brother using _most_ of this stuff. "I think I'm scarred for life just _thinking_ about that."

"Promise's ex-husbands were pretty much dead when she married them," Robin said, ignoring Cal's second comment. "If she _had_ tried any of this stuff on them… no wonder they died, actually. But, anyway, tastes."

Cal gave him an incredulous look. "You mean, she has them. Tastes. And you don't?"

If Robin continued to roll his eyes, they were going to fall right out of his head. He was beginning to maybe — just sort of — get why Niko tried to train him out of it, and he remembered why he kept doing it. "No, dumbass. I'm not you. I meant, if she's got a thing for older men, then she's not likely to have tried kinkier stuff. Maybe this will give them a few ideas." He waggled his eyebrow, and god, Cal was never going to be able to get his dick up again with that image lodged in his brain.

"He's not going to have a threesome with you," Cal interjected. "Even if they get into the kinky stuff, which, ugh, why are you making me think about this stuff? _Brother_, Robin, what part of that don't you get? I'm going to need bleach to — oh my _god_, put that… that _thing_ down."

"What? This thing?" Robin waved the monstrosity again. "It's just a dildo, Cal. You stick it —" He moved it behind him and made lewd gestures, and Cal's entire face heated up like a hamburger on a grill.

"_Stop it_," Cal hissed desperately. "Loman! That — god, no, put that down. Don't — oh my god." He covered his face with his hands and shook his head. There was nothing he could do to wipe the image of Robin doing the BDSM shop equivalent of a Safety On Board demonstration with the pony play kit out of his mind.

"You are being such a girl," Robin said, and this time, Cal didn't manage to duck the swat to his head in time. It wasn't really his fault, though, because when you're hiding from life-ending embarrassment and trying to scrub the image of your brother, his vampire girlfriend, and your neighborhood puck doing things like _that_ out of your mind, you tend to be less aware of your surroundings than usual. Now there was a thought; if the Auphe had put _those_ images in his head, he would have been in a very usable almost-vegetative state for their attempt to end the world.

"I don't want to _die_," Cal argued. "You know Nik'll kill me, right? I'm not getting him any of this. No way. You get him something, and I'll laugh when he runs you through with his sword. Or freezes you to death with his glare."

"You're no fun," Robin repeated. "You have no sense of adventure."

"I have a sense of adventure. My sense of self-preservation is just better."

Robin just shook his head mournfully, bought something for himself — Cal didn't even want to know — and actually allowed him to leave the shop without forcing him to pay for anything.

-

"…What is this?"

Cal blinked at Niko. "It's a book." Niko raised an eyebrow. "It's a very useful book?"

"Cal," Niko said patiently. "You don't think I've read this already?"

"The Kama Sutra? How am I supposed to know if you've read it or not?" Cal didn't spend a lot of time thinking about what Niko had or had not done when it was related to sex, after all. Because really, his _brother_. He wasn't Robin, who apparently spent far too many hours thinking about Niko and Promise's bedroom activities, which was just wrong. Really, really wrong.

The Kama Sutra wasn't even his fault. He'd dragged Robin out of the BDSM store and into a bookshop instead, in the hopes of getting his brother something that Niko wouldn't kill him for. Robin being Robin, however, hadn't let him buy anything normal and _sane_ and safe. Cal was starting to think he really misunderstood the meaning of Christmas. Instead of giving something you knew they'd _like_ to someone, Robin seemed to believe that the answer was giving them a present that would completely baffle them.

"Innovation!" he had told Cal when Cal had tried to point this out to him. "Really, Cal, how many swords have you given him over the years? Use your imagination; if Niko wanted a sword, he could buy one for himself." Cal was pretty sure he had a point, but he still couldn't see why the 'innovative' present had to be sex-related.

The Kama Sutra, he'd reasoned, was probably still safer than a vibrating, wriggling, super-whatever-ing buttplug-bead-thing.

The look Niko was giving him, however, made him sigh, and after a few more moments of that look, Cal pulled out another box. "I did get you this just in case." Something sharp and shiny; Niko's favorite kind of toy. Niko's face actually lit up. Yeah, he should never have listened to Robin; the tried and true always worked much better. Listening to the puck had just meant Cal now knew way too much about Niko's sex life for comfort.

As Niko tested out the balance on his new knife, Cal turned his attention to the very loudly colored box in his hand. He really, really didn't think he wanted to see what was inside it, especially considering Niko's present had been the _gay_ Kama Sutra, which Niko had deliberately tossed somewhere over the edge of the couch. It hadn't been what Robin had bought in the BDSM shop.

Which left only one real possibility as to where the mystery purchase had gone.

He sighed and stopped putting off the inevitable, opening the package slowly, as though it was a bomb. Actually, it probably would have been less scary if it had been a bomb.

Inside was a complete beginners' guide to sex toy usage for kinky men, complete with incredibly indiscreet sex toys, no-holds-barred instructions, and a piece of paper with a smiley face drawn on it, obviously by Robin's hand. "Because Christmas is about trying new things," the note said. "You never know what you'll discover."

Niko didn't stop laughing for at least ten minutes. Next time he saw Robin, Cal thought, he was going to throw the damn studded dildo — as the label on it proclaimed proudly — at Robin's head, and then maybe find somewhere _really_ innovative to stick it.


End file.
